YoungUpstarts

DECEMBER 7, 2017

These five strategies are proven to work for early-stage companies in a variety of industries — including, perhaps, yours. Instead, use an existing user manual template that’s appropriate for your process and vertical. They quite literally can’t afford to wait. Focus on Your Minimum Viable Product.

Cost 100

Cost Developer Small Business Administration Marketing 100

ConversionXL

JANUARY 18, 2022

It partners with sales to close more revenue, informs product teams to deliver better products, and in some cases, co-owns demand generation activities with marketing teams. of their time), marketing teams (84.2%), and sales teams (75.9%). Use product marketing to boost reach and sales. They rely on each other for success.

Marketing 110

Marketing Product Audience Equity 110

Austin Startup

NOVEMBER 30, 2017

It follows up on my posts discussing why early stage startups should — or should not — move to Silicon Valley. Should Early Stage Startups Move to Austin because of Competencies? With that in mind, ventures at any stage of development should indeed do very well in Austin, but might hit a few ceilings as time passes.

Early Stage 48

Early Stage Austin Silicon Valley Intellectual Property 48

Steve Blank

MAY 11, 2021

billion in early funding. Dozens of outreach programs across the military now offer quick revenue to early-stage companies. For example, “flying taxi” startup Joby Aviation aligned its electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft with the Air Force’s stated interest in advancing the market for air mobility vehicles.

Artificial Inteligence 337

Artificial Inteligence Marketing Startup Silicon Valley 337

ConversionXL

JANUARY 28, 2021

While early-stage companies may not see an immediate need for using a CDP, setting the groundwork before reaching accelerated growth can save time and frustration down the line. If your customer service team has insights into why customers are churning, but your sales team is left in the dark, that’s a problem.

Technical Review 86

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Technical Cofounder 86

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 6, 2019

Relevancy for an early-stage company is the discovery and understanding of the real addressable market for a product or service. Selling too early triggers customer defenses and drives them away. This is not just sales traction, but a proper balance between resources, product, and customers.

Startup 242

Startup Early Stage Vertical Sales 242

SoCal CTO

MARCH 18, 2010

Vince: I’m an author, speaker and management consultant with a special expertise in online media sales. I started out as screenwriter, went into local television, ran ad sales in the west for AOL and joined Facebook in the companies very early days. You’ve got a REALLY diverse background. What’s the short version?

Los Angeles 225

Los Angeles Revenue Southern California Social Network 225

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

In venture capital in particular, early-stage companies are often operating in frontier industries, where the rules are unpredictable and conventional analytic frameworks may be misleading. I previously posted a detailed presentation with sales technology tools useful for B2B sales. Pitchbot.vc 3) Originate investments.

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 7, 2009

This post describes how following the traditional product development can lead to a “startup death spiral.&# In the next posts that follow, I’ll describe how this model’s failures led to the Customer Development Model – offering a new way to approach startup sales and marketing activities. The board raises a collective eyebrow.

Customer Development 228

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 228

Austin Startup

JUNE 22, 2020

The phrase, “missionaries, not mercenaries,” applies just as equally to early-stage investors as employees. They have a $600k sales backlog that they’ll complete this month, and about 50% or more of that will be recurring revenue. The product is a complex AI service in an industry vertical that is large and growing fast.

Vertical 64

Vertical Early Stage Forecast Revenue 64

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 30, 2013

Relevancy for an early-stage company is the discovery and understanding of the real addressable market for a product or service. Selling too early triggers customer defenses and drives them away. This is not just sales traction, but a proper balance between resources, product, and customers.

Startup 293

Startup Early Stage Vertical Sales 293

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 28, 2012

Relevancy for an early-stage company is the discovery and understanding of the real addressable market for a product or service. Selling too early triggers customer defenses and drives them away. This is not just sales traction, but a proper balance between resources, product, and customers. A startup must gain traction.

Startup 247

Startup Early Stage Vertical Sales 247

VC Cafe

AUGUST 29, 2022

As an investor in early stage startups in gaming and metaverse/web3 at Remagine Ventures , I naturally consume a lot of content on this topic, and this post also helps me digest and separate signal from noise. Consolidated brands NFT sales (source: Dune ). Inworld AI (image credit: Techcrunch ). Industry reports.

IP 187

IP Strategic Investors Vertical Early Stage 187

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

Twenty eight years ago I was the bright, young, eager product marketing manager called out to the field to support sales by explaining the technical details of Convergent Technologies products to potential customers. They looked at their watches, gave our sales guy a quizzical look and left.

Technology 139

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 139

ReadWriteStart

JANUARY 6, 2011

This curriculum is based on the various questions entrepreneurs have asked me over these 64 sessions, spanning financing, positioning, customer acquisition, marketing, sales, channel, and various other early stage, startup-related issues. As usual, then, I worked with three entrepreneurs working on specific businesses.

Vertical 115

Vertical Web San Francisco Entrepreneur 115

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 17, 2016

Relevancy for an early-stage company is the discovery and understanding of the real addressable market for a product or service. Selling too early triggers customer defenses and drives them away. This is not just sales traction, but a proper balance between resources, product, and customers.

Startup 120

Startup Early Stage Vertical Sales 120

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 5, 2009

I had last been in Chapel Hill on a winter’s day in 1986, traveling with the VP of Sales of our new supercomputer startup, Ardent. My ex-boss was going to be the VP of Engineering and I would report to the CEO whose marketing acumen and sales instincts seemed at the time to be telepathic and sense of theater was legend.

North Carolina 126

North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 126

View from Seed

APRIL 8, 2020

Stevens has held roles across verticals such as head of sales, marketing, product, and professional services at five startups over twenty years. He helps early-stage startups with sales, marketing, and general “go to market” topics. Your sales process is not on anyone’s mind right now.

B2B 156

B2B Angel Investor Vertical Early Stage 156

Haystack

JULY 8, 2018

After reflecting on it for a day, I began to understand why — even though this topic has been written about many times, “technology” as a sector and industry now has gone from vertical to horizontal, entirely pervasive across industries, across sectors, across geographies and cultures.

Early Stage 95

Early Stage Dilution Private Equity Common Stock 95

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

The same issues arose time and again: big company management styles versus entrepreneurs wanting to shoot from the hip, founders versus professional managers, engineering versus marketing, marketing versus sales, missed schedule issues, sales missing the plan, running out of money, raising new money.

Silicon Valley 126

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital Customer Development 126

Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

———— T o: Marketing Department From: Steve Subject: Going to Trade Shows Like it Matters Generating Leads Ownership If your company is going to a show to generate leads, then sales owns the show. This is worthy of an open and honest discussion with sales up front. And inviting to the booth/dinner/private demo.

Silicon Valley 129

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 129

David Teten

AUGUST 19, 2019

The mode purpose for funding is (in order of frequency) Sales, Marketing, Market Expansion, Product Development, and Hiring Employees. Additionally, Feenix typically needs fewer financial covenants and can provide quicker turnaround for due diligence with the benefit of transparency they receive by tracking credit card sales activity.

Revenue 60

Revenue Technical Review Software Review Equity 60

A Crowded Space

OCTOBER 2, 2018

While a big incumbent is stuck working on their existing core business and platform, early stage startups can focus on new platforms or niche parts of the market to build up initial traction. 3) Niche Managed Marketplaces – Within many verticals, there are opportunities to significantly improve customer experience.

Vertical 60

Vertical B2B Early Stage Mobile 60

YoungUpstarts

JANUARY 10, 2016

Specific verticals, such as sales and marketing, will definitely stand to benefit from leveraging the data collected from the Internet of Things to make predictions, effectively set targets and tailor their go-to-market messaging to understand their target audience better.

Customer 100

Customer Advisory Board Asia Internet 100

Up and Running

JULY 26, 2016

Aug-15: Head of Sales (growth team). We spent a year building a solid sales and growth team before we even expanded our product team. See Also: A Complete Guide to Forecasting Sales for Your Monthly Subscription (SaaS) Business. Then, in 2015, this is who we added to the team: Jan-15: Head of Customer Success (growth team).

Revenue 60

Revenue Acquisition Channel Campaign 60

Austin Startup

SEPTEMBER 19, 2017

This is useful for a number of reasons, the most obvious of which is to help you navigate the right channels in your vertical and open doors to potential customers. A strong advisor can walk you in the door to the same number of companies as 2–3 new sales hires. I think of this as an early test of the founding team’s sales ability.

Advisory Board 48

Advisory Board Sweat Equity Marketing Vertical 48

Duct Tape Marketing

FEBRUARY 22, 2017

Think back to a sales situation with a friend of a friend, one where you started with a huge trust advantage: how much smoother and faster was the process? Even if you’re at a very early stage, if you’re reading this, it’s safe to say that research tasks are below your pay grade, and conducting them will leave you time for little else.

Curation 44

Curation Lead Generation Technical Review Email 44

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

Market Type affects your spending and sales ramp after you reach product/market fit. One can even make the case that getting Market Type right is the most valuable thing a marketer can do to add value and affect success in an early stage venture. This a hard concept and even harder to implement. See if you can get to scale.

Customer Development 223

Customer Development Web Developer Customer 223

Lightspeed Venture Partners

APRIL 13, 2015

One look at any of the market maps for marketing tech, sales productivity apps, HR tech or other functional areas within enterprises would tell you how crowded these traditional enterprise software landscapes have become… Is there another billion dollar company to be built in some of these areas? SaaS is no longer a new business model.

Sales Cycle 60

Sales Cycle Government Demand Distribution 60

VC Cafe

APRIL 27, 2011

Depending on the stage of the company, sources may range from FFF (Friends, Family and Fools), angel investors, incubators, startup competitions, grants, crowd funding and off course, VC (though often a last resort in the earliest stages). Create events around guests arriving from abroad or experts in a vertical area.

Venture Capital 90

Venture Capital Differentiation Incubator Angel Investor 90

Genuine VC

FEBRUARY 3, 2011

Once you’ve figured out whether you want to find a very early stage startup or a late stage one (the topic of my first post in this series ), the real hard work begins. DOs for a systematic rather than haphazard startup job search: Pick a specific vertical or theme (e.g. Specific questions spur new ideas.

Startup 148

Startup Portfolio Later Stage Hiring 148

cdixon.org

SEPTEMBER 17, 2011

You’ll refine your sales and investor pitch. But it’s probably wise to be more secretive in some vertical markets: [link]. Great points, though your bio does read “Personal investor in early-stage technology companies, including … a handful of other startups that are still in stealth mode!”

Stealth 68

Stealth Startup NDA Cofounder 68

Austin Startup

OCTOBER 13, 2010

The financing round, led by PerformanceEdge Partners and existing lead investor S3 Ventures, provides the company with the funds needed to extend its marketing and sales initiatives and grow new partnerships. Most recently he served as vice president within the global strategic partner and channel sales organizations for Symantec.

Vertical 59

Vertical Early Stage Cofounder Channel 59

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

I previously posted a detailed presentation with sales technology tools useful for B2B sales. Data companies focused on early-stage startups include Aingel , fundsUP , Preseries , PredictLeads , and Sploda. The Pocket Negotiator is very early-stage attempt to aid in the negotiating process itself.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

David Teten

JANUARY 21, 2021

VI: Revenue-based financing: The next step for private equity and early-stage investment. —– Reformation Partners is a new investment firm founded by three partners who spun out of FirstMark Capital ($3B AUM firm which was an early investor in Shopify, Pinterest, and Riot Games). 20% initial ownership.

Equity 78

Equity Revenue Cofounder Colorado 78

Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2009

Rule 1: In an existing market Customer Development means not only understanding potential customers, but your competitors in detail – their product features, their sales channels, their demand creation strategy, their business model, etc. That’s why early stage companies aren’t run by accountants with spreadsheets.

Silicon Valley 188

Silicon Valley Startup RSS Customer Development 188

Steve Blank

MAY 21, 2009

As the company gets larger and a large professional sales organization kicks in, its second priority is to generate qualified leads. Before you go to a trade show sales and marketing need to agree to measurable goals. Then offer those budget dollars to the VP of Sales.

Silicon Valley 185

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 185